The Best Times to Publish on LinkedIn

by John Mitchell, Demand Media

Post to LinkedIn during peak hours.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images

You can increase the visibility of your posts being seen on social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, by knowing what are the most active times of the day for social media and knowing your target audience. You'll also want to know what worse time of day to post to social networking sites, as your posts will most likely not be seen at those times or buried down in the timeline below other user's posts.

Best Time

The best time to publish on a social network may vary from network to network, but ideally you want to post content around noon or early evening. If you post a status message or share a link to an article at noon, you're more likely to catch business professionals on a lunch break who are looking to catch up their online social networks. Early evening, starting between 5 P.M. to 6 P.M. is another great time of the day to publish content to LinkedIn, because you are catching users at the end of their work day.

Worst Time

The worst time to post content or share links with your LinkedIn connections is between the hours of 10 P.M. to 6 A.M., as most business professionals are sleeping during the night time hours. These hours are considered the "dead zone" according KISSmetrics, a group of marketing professionals, who did an in-depth analysis of the best and worst times to post to social networks.

Target Audience

Get to know your target audience you are trying to reach on LinkedIn. Pay attention to the times of day you receive comments on your status updated and posted content. Also, see when users are posting to their profile. If a person is posting or commenting, they are logged into LinkedIn and most likely will look for updates from their connections. Time your published LinkedIn updates to coincide with the key times you discover. You may even want to post your content 15 to 30 minutes prior to these times, so they are ready to be viewed once that user logs into their account.

Best Days

The best days to post to LinkedIn are midweek from Tuesday to Thursday. Mondays are not a good day to post content you want eyeballs looking at, because most professionals are getting back into the work week grind. Fridays are not good days to publish important content either, mainly because most professionals leave the office early to start the weekend. However, Saturday and Sunday can be good days to post content, as some users want to catch up with their social networking on the weekend.

About the Author

John Mitchell is an expert in all things technology, including social media and smart phones. He is a news ninja for Qwiki, bringing the latest news on the interactive platform. Mitchell graduated from the University of Sedona with a master's degree in pastoral counseling psychology and authored the book, "No More Taxes."

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